Wisdom
by flootzavut
Summary: Episode tag for One Shot, One Kill. Kate has finally had enough of Gibbs' ever confusing behaviour. This started life as a one shot, but refused to be tamed. I'm not sure where it's leading, so please exercise some patience... TBC
1. Wisdom

**_KATE_**

Awake and flustered at 2am was sadly familiar and neverendingly frustrating.

"I'm gonna kill him," she muttered to herself.

The him in question? One Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Messing with her head. Again.

She kept thinking she'd got a handle on the unruly crush that had made her first months at NCIS borderline miserable at times, despite enjoying the job itself. She'd get fed up of Gibbs' sarcasm, his endless capacity to make her feel three inches high, his apparent inability to ever be satisfied, and it would enable her to go home telling herself that he really was a bastard, and any redeeming features she thought she'd seen were illusory or imaginary. Then she'd come in the next day and _wham_ - he'd actually do something thoughtful, or pay her the ghost of a compliment, or just shoot her one of those fleeting smiles, and she'd melt.

Damn it.

Today had run the full gamut of the Gibbs confusometer. His expression when she'd first appeared in her Marine uniform - the easy familiarity in his inspection. The warmth in his eyes when he told her she looked good. How _he'd_ looked, the reminder that he was first and foremost a Marine, a soldier, even a hero. His indulgent grin when she'd messed up her ribbons and his defence of her to the Major. His request that they be allowed the honour of doing their jobs.

It had disarmed and charmed her, and she'd sat there watching him be a human target thinking the man could be almost too damn noble for his own good. She'd joked with Tony that she was thinking of signing up, but in her heart she almost wished she could. She wouldn't, of course - another career change just because she had some half baked desire to show Gibbs she could be a Marine would be beyond stupid - but the really foolish part of her brain kept showing her images of his respect, of how impressed he'd be, of how he'd suddenly see her in a whole new light. She was well aware of just how far fetched and ridiculous the thoughts were, but that didn't magically make them go away.

When the bullet intended for his heart had splintered the reinforced glass, she'd gasped, sudden nausea welling up as she realised the price he could have paid for her failure to identify the water delivery guy as the shooter, and how desperately horrific she found the idea of losing him.

They'd sprinted to the scene just in time to see the FBI take over. The case was wrapped up, the mystery solved. They'd done a good job. Then Gibbs'd given her that look and asked where her cover was. As if she'd been thinking about her stupid hat when he'd just been shot at. She'd been pissed about that, and even more so that it'd made her feel like she had, once again, narrowly missed his approval over something that seemed so ridiculous.

On the plus side, her anger had supercharged her energy, and she'd wrapped up the paperwork in record time. She'd ruefully told herself that at least she really had got over him this time. That she really didn't need him to tell her she'd done a good job, because she knew she had. That he could go jump off a bridge for all she cared.

(No, really. He could.)

Then he'd shot her a look as he left for the night. A secret little almost-smile. An expression that on anyone else she'd interpret as being just a tiny bit proud of her.

"DiNozzo." A pause. A twinkle. "Captain."

And here she was again, wondering what it all meant in the small hours of the morning. Wondering what Gibbs would look like in formal dress blues, white gloves and all. Or, better still, with his dress blues on the floor of her bedroom.

Wondering exactly how much trouble she'd get into if she dragged him into the elevator, flicked the emergency stop, pushed him up against the wall, and kissed him stupid.

In short, wondering a whole bundle of things she was unlikely to get answers to in the foreseeable future, never mind at - she glanced at the clock and groaned - now 2:40 in the morning. Part of her wanted to call him and yell at him. If she was awake then why should he get to sleep?

Half an hour later she was curled on the sofa wrapped in a blanket, a bottle of some ludicrously sweet and vile liqueur in her hand, cursing herself for not taking up her doctor's offer of sleeping pills. She'd blithely assured him, when she'd gone for a routine checkup and he'd been concerned about the bags under her eyes, that it would settle, that back to back cases had simply left her tired and wired. It had been mostly true, but if she wasn't so allergic even to the idea of a crutch, she'd've had the sense to allow the prescription just in case.

She took another slug from the bottle, winced, and wondered what had ever possessed her to buy this sickly stuff in the first place, never mind actually keep it once she figured out how disgusting it was.

By 4am the idea of making Gibbs suffer if she was not going to get any sleep had, through the mediation of exhaustion and alcohol, morphed from moderately tempting wishful thinking to a reasonable solution. It took her several tries to find his number in the memory of her cell - she was sure he was somewhere in her speed dials, but she couldn't recall whether she'd put him on 2 (B for bastard) or 4 (G for Gibbs), and the small part of her brain still functioning despite sleep deprivation and alcohol saturation really didn't want to risk waking Abby or Tim, or, God forbid, letting Tony interrogate her when she was this drunk.

That part of her brain was trying to get her attention as the line connected, but she shushed it impatiently. What she was doing was not wise, but she was sick of wisdom. Wisdom was overrated. Wisdom was boring. She had had it with wisdom.

Two rings. "Gibbs."

She held the pause for a second, imagining his expression as he lost patience with the early morning call, hearing his frustrated huff. Letting him stew just a few moments longer before she let him have it, and giving herself a moment to line up the words in her head.

"You're a bastard."


	2. Drunk Dialling

**_GIBBS_**

"Yo basta."

He frowned at the phone, double checked the caller ID. "What?" Kate calling in the middle of the night was strange enough, but incoherently drunk? That was out of character. He'd tried to hide it under his usual deadpan snark, but he'd been rather proud of her today, and as for seeing her in Marine gear... There was something about seeing his young and beautiful protégé in the uniform of his beloved Corps that had undone much of his efforts to ignore, stifle, work around and flat out deny the attraction that he'd felt towards her since the start.

Given the right circumstances, she'd make a fine Marine, though she would probably earn herself a few reprimands for insubordination along the way. Posing as his superior officer? She'd been nigh on irresistible, and it had killed him to have to keep his hands off of her. He'd had to stop himself fiddling with her uniform as he inspected it, in case he suddenly forgot himself and did something wholly inappropriate.

All in all, they'd had a good day and wrapped up the case. They'd done their jobs and Kate had acquitted herself well. So why was she drunk dialling him at 0400? And how much alcohol did it take for his normally well spoken and collected Katie, this woman who could stop DiNozzo in his tracks with one well aimed verbal barb, to be literally incomprehensible.

Of course, the other question was why was he awake at 4am to take her call, but he knew the answer to that one all too well, and dwelling on it wouldn't help any.

She stopped her rant to breathe, and he took the opportunity.

"Kate, what's wrong? You OK?"

It seemed kind of a stupid question to ask, in the circumstances, but emotional women had never brought out the best in him.

"No!" she wailed. "'M not... Not OK. Not OK 't all. 'S all your fault, hate you." Her last couple of words hurt more than he would've expected. He didn't know what to make of it, especially since they'd come out on a sob.

The Kate he'd come to know and trust was not a woman who showed weakness easily. When she was upset it was more likely to turn to anger than tears - it was unnerving to witness this other side to her, this vulnerability that she took such pains to hide.

He'd seen it before - more often, he suspected, than she'd realised - but never quite so vividly. This was his fault? He couldn't see how, but that didn't stop him feeling crap. And he might have taken great pains to pretend he didn't notice the zing of chemistry between them, but he'd never wanted her to hate him.

"Kate?" She was crying now, and he felt an unsettling combination of crying-girl-panic and pure guilt. "Katie?"

There was a loud and wet sounding sniff at the other end of the phone. "'M sorry."

This was making less sense by the moment. Even Kate didn't usually manage to bewilder him quite this much. "Sorry for what?"

There was a pause. Then another wail. "I don't knoooooooow..."

He held the phone away from his ear and looked at it, as if that might somehow help his confusion. Predictably, it didn't. She was still crying, and he was at a loss what to do about it.

"Kate?"

There was a wet sniffing noise and when she spoke her voice was still wobbly. "Yeah?"

"What can I do?"

There were a few more sniffs down the line, then a very quiet "Don't know."

Gibbs rubbed his eyes and suppressed a sigh. Life never would just be simple.

"'M so lonely." It was so soft he'd almost missed it. "I just..."

He swallowed. He hated to hear that pain in her voice. The wise thing to do here would be to gently but firmly tell her to drink plenty of water, go back to bed, and miss her morning run in favour of a lie in. _Screw wisdom_. "You want some company?"

There was utter silence. He got the strongest impression she stopped breathing for a few seconds in sheer surprise. "What?"

_Crap_. He'd really felt like not offering outright was his one concession to wisdom. In fairness, given that she was clearly drunk and he wasn't exactly known as being a good shoulder to cry on, she had every reason to imagine she'd misheard him. Still, actually putting it bluntly felt uncomfortably exposing.

"Would you... Would you like me to, uh, come over?"

There was another beat, and he imagined that now it was Kate looking at her phone in disbelief as if it could explain things to her.

"'K."

More silence, then. He felt more than usually tongue tied, and suspected Kate had the same problem.

"OK. I'll- I'll come right over."

"'K."

There didn't seem to be much else to say, and he was just about to end the call when he heard her speak again.

"Gibbs?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't really hate you."

His breath caught in his throat at her tone. Then the line went dead.


End file.
